Radio communications systems that use multiple sub-carriers to broadcast multiple signals exist. These systems are often referred to as multi carrier frequency domain multiple access (multi carrier FDMA) systems and they split the available bandwidth into separate sub-carriers. Each sub-carrier can be used to broadcast a separate message. The messages on the separate sub-carriers may be intended for separate receivers. The sub-carriers may also be used together to improve the quality of the signal or increase the effective data rate or bandwidth available to one receiver. One step in receiving the message contained in a sub-carrier is determining a timing offset for locating the start of the message. Where a message on multiple sub-carriers is intended for a single receiver, the receiver must determine the timing offset to use in decoding each of the sub-carriers. Current methods evaluate a timing offset for a sub-carrier and use that offset for all other sub-channels. This approach can suffer from a lack of accuracy that is needed to assure that all sub-carriers are received with sufficient integrity. Clearly a need exists for improved methods and apparatus for determining a timing offset for processing a multi-carrier signal.